Honey's Money
Honey's Money is a 1962 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng. Plot Sam learns that a local widow has inherited five million dollars. He plans to marry her to get his hands on her money, after which he plans to buy the old ladies' home and kick the old ladies out, close the orphanage, and have the police department disbanded. When Sam sees that the woman is an ugly hag, he tries to run, but when the woman says she now has someone to help spend her money, he agrees to marry her. Sam also finds her a harridan, and he is quickly made into a janitor, forced to do backbreaking house chores while the wife sits idly by, watching his every move. The wealthy widow calls her enormous, yet still childlike son, Wentworth, to meet his new daddy. She asks him to play horsey with his new stepson. Sam retorts if Wentworth wants to play horsey "then let him eat hay!", but agrees when shown her bank book. During the horsey ride, Sam is squashed by the enormous child riding on his back. Sam and his wife start a huge shouting match a short time later when she asks him to take Wentworth to the park. The back-and-forth of "Yes you are!" and "No I'm not!" becomes a recurring theme, with Sam relenting in every case. At the park, Sam decides that in order to keep all the money for himself, he has to get rid of his wife and Wentworth. He first tries to throw a ball into the street but his wife makes him retrieve it, causing Sam to get run over. When he later takes Wentworth swimming, Sam hires a passing truck and herds its cargo of gators into the pool while Wentworth is changing, but when Wentworth jumps into the pool he makes such a huge splash that all of the alligators land back in the truck on top of Sam. A lot of splashing, growling, and jaw-snapping is heard as he beats them off with a club. Sam packs his bags, and is leaving the house muttering, "It's just money. Is it worth it? What's a million bucks?" He then realizes his life of torture is worth all that money and goes running back inside the old woman's home. Availability * (1994) VHS - Yosemite Sam: The Good, The Bad, and The Ornery! * (2014) Blu-ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3, Disc 1 Censorship Nickelodeon once aired this cartoon uncut from 1993 to 1995. From 1995 to its end, the short was cut to remove the scene where Yosemite Sam tries to get rid of Wentworth by throwing a ball into traffic and Wentworth retrieving the ball without getting run over (the part where Sam goes to do it again and his wife forces him to go into traffic and Sam gets run down wasn't edited, most likely because the scene showed realistic consequences to that dangerous action while Wentworth's attempt had to be cut since the censors feared kids may imitate that, even though a similar scene from "Pappy's Puppy" was not censored on Nickelodeon).The Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Page: H http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-h.aspx Notes * "Honey's Money" is a semi-remake of the 1950 short "His Bitter Half", where Daffy Duck marries a female duck for money, but is thrown for a loop when the wife immediately becomes a harsh, nagging harridan and forces him to spend quality time with a son she didn't previously reveal. * Both cartoons had a stepson named Wentworth which was a point of trouble for the characters. In Daffy's case, Wentworth's brattiness was the problem. The human Wentworth is not bratty in this cartoon; rather it is his size that is a problem for Yosemite Sam. * The cartoon is Sam's only solo cartoon. * It is one of only two cartoons, along with 1947's "Along Came Daffy", where Sam isn't paired with long-time rival Bugs Bunny. * This short has the same story start as one of Sam's earlier cartoons, "Hare Trimmed". * Interestingly, the same premise would be used again in a 1970 Roland and Rattfink short: "A Taste of Money", as happened a lot with the DFE cartoons. * Milt Franklyn provided the music for the short, though he was deceased since April 1962. This means the short was completed before his death. This would be the case with two more shorts in late 1962, before replacement composer Bill Lava's name finally started appearing in the opening credits in November with "Good Noose". * This short shares a similarity to "Pappy's Puppy" where both characters (Sylvester and Yosemite Sam) try to get rid of the kid (Young bulldog and Wentworth) by having them fetch an object in traffic to get run over but get caught by the kid's parent and forced into fetching it themselves and then get run over. * Production Number: 1583 * MPAA Number: 19914 (consecutively with "Banty Raids" {Issued MPAA certificate 19915} and "Mexican Cat Dance" {Issued MPAA certificate 19916}) References Gallery Honeys$.jpg|Title Card (Before Remastering) 1583wb (1).png Honey's_money-1.png TV Title Cards 19.png|''The Merrie Melodies Show'' External Links Honey's Money on the SFX Resource Category:1962 Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng Category:Shorts Category:Yosemite Sam Cartoons Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts Category:Cartoons with music by Milt Franklyn Category:Cartoons written by John Dunn Category:Cartoons animated by Bob Matz Category:Cartoons animated by Lee Halpern Category:Cartoons animated by Art Leonardi Category:Cartoons with layouts by Hawley Pratt Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Tom O'Loughlin Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons produced by David H. DePatie Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by June Foray